In North America, cannon were generally too cumbrous for Indian fighting. But from the time (1565) the French, in Florida, loosed the first bolt at the rival fleet of the Spaniard Menendez, cannon were used on land and sea during intercolonial strife, or against corsairs. Over the vast distances of early America, transport of heavy guns was necessarily by water. Without ships, the guns were inexorably walled in by the forest. So it was when the Carolinian Moore besieged St. Augustine in 1702. When his ships burned, Moore had to leave his guns to the Spaniards. One of the first appearances of organized American field artillery on the battlefield was in the Northeast, where France's Louisburg fell to British and Colonial forces in 1745. Serving with the British Royal Artillery was the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, which had originated in 1637. English field artillery of the day had "brigades" of four to six cannon, and each piece was supplied with 100 rounds of solid shot and 30 rounds of grape. John Mueller's _Treatise on Artillery_, the standard English authority, was republished in Philadelphia (1779), and British artillery was naturally a model for the arm in America. [Illustration: Figure 8--AMERICAN 6-POUNDER FIELDPIECE (c. 1775).] At the outbreak of the War of Independence, American artillery was an accumulation of guns, mortars, and howitzers of every sort and some 13 different calibers. Since the source of importation was cut off, the undeveloped casting industries of the Colonies undertook cannon founding, and by 1775 the foundries of Philadelphia were casting both bronze and iron guns. A number of bronze French guns were brought in later. The mobile guns of Washington's army ranged from 3- to 24-pounders, with 5-1/2- and 8-inch howitzers. They were usually bronze. A few iron siege guns of 18-, 24-, and 32-pounder caliber were on hand. The guns used round shot, grape, and case shot; mortars and howitzers fired bombs and carcasses. "Side boxes" on each side of the carriage held 21 rounds of ammunition and were taken off when the piece was brought into battery. Horses or oxen, with hired civilian drivers, formed the transport. On the battlefield the cannoneers manned drag ropes to maneuver the guns into position. Sometimes, as at Guilford Courthouse, the ever-present forest diminished the effectiveness of artillery, but nevertheless the arm was often put to good use. The skill of the American gunners at Yorktown contributed no little toward the speedy advance of the siege trenches. Yorktown battlefield today has many examples of Revolutionary War cannon, including some fine ship guns recovered from British vessels sunk during the siege of 1781.